Too Much of a Good Thing.
Is there such a thing as “too much of a good thing?” Well, I am here to tell you yes! Sort of. I was recently in the Vally of Fire State Park, which was beautiful. The colors, the rock formations, and the plant life were all amazing on their own, but when all placed together, it created an otherworldly landscape and, honestly, a little too much of a good thing. Everywhere I looked, I was sure I could have found an exciting image to create, but I couldn’t separate the pieces. I could not hone in and choose a single subject to create a photograph. Because of this, I felt overwhelmed, here I was in a gorgeous desert environment, and I walked away with almost no photographs. It was a little disheartening, to be sure.
I did say, “Almost no photographs.” I managed to get my head together enough to create a few images, and there is one in particular that I am pretty proud of. This one, I feel, depicts the intricate nature of the desert. It is the shadow of a “California Croton” shrub. This image reflects the delicate nature of the plant and the harsh nature of the desert landscape simultaneously. The bush itself is hardly in the photograph, only just the base of the shrub growing, it seems, impossibly from the soft sand at the very top of the image. Most of the composition is made up of the shadow of the shrub. What drew me was the intricate patterns of the branches and the few leaves on the shrub. The way shadow seemed to grow along the sand, and there were a few small pebbles seemingly taking shelter in what little shade there may be. I shot this “upsidedown” to further convey the disorienting feeling I was experiencing that day. To be in a place that was so pretty and unique and not to be able to find something to photograph truly felt upside down, like I was in over my head.
That brings us back to the question, “Is there too much of a good thing?” I guess it depends on what that thing is. But I think, more importantly, it’s not how much you have but what you do with it that truly matters.
